


A friend of mine

by sealbatross



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Gen, Sandwiches, Time Loop, not THAT kind, poetry ish its just how my brain makes words lol, the nom nom hungry kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29486073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealbatross/pseuds/sealbatross
Summary: Hermes stops. For a while.
Relationships: Hermes & Orpheus (Hadestown)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	A friend of mine

**Author's Note:**

> Ramblings of a madman. Prepare for poetryesque shenanigans. It's 2am and this is fine.

Hermes tried. He did. He'd lost count, but that in itself was proof. That he tried. 

In the darkness his eyes wander, waiting. For hope like those shimmering shapes closed eyelids reveal. All was empty. He shifts his foot, pushing crumbled sand into that perfectly round, bottomless pit. A part of this dusty dirt road, lost. No sound of grit echoes. Just the stomach dropping allure of an emptiness that threatened to swallow the world.   
Like before, he'd stand, he'd look, and soon enough. If he waited, he'd feel a stirring of some spark in him. And he'd scoop the poor boy on the other edge of that abyss into his embrace. Tear him from the horrible trance he himself knows too well, the same trance that holds him now. And they'd shuffle home, slowly, the last puddles of winter at their heels. And he'd fix up some bread and whatever jerky that's left at the bar. And he'd spend hours coaxing his boy to eat. His boy would drearily refuse for the last time before collapsing in nightfall. Hermes would gently cover him with his now dusty overcoat, and read to him in candlelight until morning comes. They'd start over. Spring would return and they'd begin their song and dance again. The pegs returned to their places. 

Hermes could almost see the spring sunrise reflected in that now dusk ridden sunset. Him, and the boy, and the well. Hermes waited for a spark.

"Mr Hermes!"

Orpheus grinds to a stop. The weeds go flying in his wake. "Eurydice! She's everything, I never felt so.. I'm sorry I haven't come to visit in a while. She's everything, the flowers, the sky. She's all the world and I. I'm in her. "  
"Eurydice!" He says desperately.   
His mind elsewhere. Eyes admiring a hidden star in the evening sky.   
"She's sleeping now, I can tell because she snores! She'll beat me for it but she really does sing in her sleep. It's not melody in traditional sense but it's hers. And she's with me."  
Orpheus eases onto the dewy grass, gingerly, careful to warn the bugs below.   
"She was so quiet before, like she was afraid. For the first times. Like she was afraid if she made a sound something might get us. But she snores! Hear!"  
Rumbling barely audible floated on the night air from the little run down tavern.   
A smile yawned on Orpheus' face as the two men listened to the noise on the wind. Orpheus trousers wet from the dew, with some flies having come and gone on his sweaty brow. The snoring quieted, and Orpheus stirred. Pink traced it's fingers readying the sky to wash away the trance of the night. 

"Mr. Hermes,"  
Orpheus ran his hands over the smooth worn wood of his guitar. It sat in his lap safe from the damp undergrowth.   
"I'm happy. I'm happy, and... I wanted to tell you I am."  
"Look at that beautiful sunrise!"  
"Whenever you're ready, come home. You would really love what we did with the place! Finally got the big wall painted, you said it was too empty now it's got flowers! And, there's sandwiches!"  
Orpheus jumps up, adjusting Hermes suit, brushing away the dust and debris. And with a jaunty salute the old statue could not see, Orpheus hurried down the dirt path back to where his heart and home were waiting.

"Mr. Hermes!"   
Familiar footsteps. Two pairs of familiar footsteps made a dull rhythm on the dusty dirt road. One steady and long strides. The other, light struts of a heeled boot. The latter with flourishing of grasses and all living things in their wake.  
"Mr Hermes uh huh. Is this my brother dear I see?" "You look like you need ten tins of these babies!" The cheap metal warbled as a warped rectangle of reflected light danced and hovered next to those heeled boots.   
"Miss Persephone can do anything! She can help you too mister Hermes!"   
A couple of haughty struts hit the sand.  
"My brother is a stubborn brick if I've ever seen one - and an old girl like me, I've seen pl-enty"

"Go back to the party Orpheus, I'll deal with my sad sack of a brother here."  
"Miss Persephone."  
"Mmm mmmm mm, go back to Eurydice, enjoy life! Let me alone to work my magic"  
No footsteps until. "You promise?"   
"Yes, git sweet boy, git!"  
Slow steps, then quicker, recede down the dusty dirt path.  
Persephone sighs. She sinks onto the road like a queen into a featherbed. The living things under the surface tremble at her presence and poke through the dirt to greet her with a mossy cushion. She throws her wicker basket aside, letting the contents spill carelessly. Leaning back on her hands, she yawned her head. The back of her neck temporarily free of curls felt a rare breeze. Rare as in when her neck was bare, there was rarely a breeze.   
The sunlight was suddenly too cold and Persephone bends forward again. She looks up, eyes meeting her brothers half lidded ones which bore into the dirt.   
"Oh brother dear, what have we become."  
She shifts and turns her back on the statuesque man. Resting against a thin leg, unscrews the flask and downs it as a practiced magician would.   
Again and again. Practice makes perfect. 

At last she glares up.   
"Tell me I've had too much".  
All seemed darker though the sun had barely made an inch on the sky. Nothing but the ominous eyes of the birch trees answered her.  
An exhale.  
"I haven't had enough."   
One more flash of silver. Hand on one knee, a steady rise. Dust off the skirt on the front then the back. Stoop down for the handle of the spilled basket just so to collect all contents in a swoop.  
Then there was a pause.   
Persephone learns forward. Smoothing her brothers wiry grey curl back into place. Something welled inside her which whatever she drank had failed to drown, or all that she drank now conspired to drown her. Mouth drawn down, she pressed her lips gently to that ebony forehead. Knowledge and stories untold kept safe in that thick thick skull.   
Trying to swallow she turned away to the sun. Drawing cool breath through her nose.   
"Haven't had enough…" Soft steps staggered their way down that dusty dirt road.

"Mr Hermes!"   
Rushing crunches plundered the snow. "She's gone! She's … where … Eurydice I can't find her. I .. how long has it been? I was working and .. and she's gone. I looked everywhere… " , Orpheus's frosty breath cast whimsical shadows on white canvas. Snow became ice from his frantic back and forth march.   
Then a shuffle and the hollow thump of his guitar. Discordant brushing of those chords were followed by a hesitant plucking of the strings. Notes meandering through the wood. Searching for a rhythm to be set to. Perhaps a melody, perhaps an illusion from the design of that instrument, the mind. For a while the notes moved apart from one another, never unpleasing, but with no clear direction. Until they settled into that old melody. The one the trees are like to hear. But upon the first coherent notes, silence.  
"They said they saw her by the railroad tracks." A continuation.  
"I'll find her."  
Only wind rustled the trees.  
"It's my fault she's down there, but I'll bring her home"  
"We'll try again." With more conviction this time.  
"I have to go, Mister Hermes. But I'll be back. Until I do, don't miss me, don't worry mmhmm? And come home when you feel like it too! Don't think it's impolite! We might not have sandwiches but we have chairs! And you're probably tired from standing out here all day."  
Hollow thump of the instrument, and the swishing of fabric.   
"Wait for me. Okay mister Hermes? I'll be back!"  
A wrapping of arms around this man of ice. Cheery but muffled steps left the silver edifice. Left it draped with a thick wool grey blanket among the bare birch trees.

'Round the back. 'Round and 'round again. The wheel of time turns.  
How many times did he witness that figure falling to that dusty dirt road? Knees to the rhythm of a syncopated drum. To the beat of time. And always, a blanket draped heavily and shielding him from the falling snow.

It was there again. The figure. And Hermes stares still into that abyss. Actions are habits. When the habit is to do nothing, it's easier to continue nothing. Maybe he's not looking for it anymore, but looking for the habit of looking. So many times he'd lost count. Eyes open but unseeing.

Steps echoed in that cave like the dripping of stalactites. The sets of footsteps on that dusty dirt road were burdened but unmistakable.   
There is always silence. Life and death both find peace in that space. A gasp. It's when sunshine turns cold.   
"It's you".  
The trees still their murmurs to witness.  
"It's me"  
Like beats of a drum  
"Orpheus"  
A rush of cloth and scraping of dirt.

The trees looked on.

"Orpheus!" Harshly a whisper.   
The voice moved from the sky and the cracked earth. Something in Hermes was hollow. The breeze rushed through his silver coat and his silver tongue and his silver throat until his insides were coated with ice. His rusted neck creaked painfully upwards. Eyes which forgot looked up to see the boy go down. Down with his love. Down into that endless sinkhole below. Down where Hermes had been for past millennia. When he should have been up here. For his boy. 

Hermes felt.  
He felt,   
cold. 

The woolen grey blanket orpheus had draped over his head had fallen. He bent his knees gingerly, expecting a wrong move would bring pain as he picked up the old cloth. It smelled like his boy. Hermes lifted it out of the dirt and shakingly wound it around his cold numb fingers. The wool was wiry but warm, wrapped his frozen limbs.   
Orpheus is gone. He's gone, this time. How many cycles? He'd lost track.   
Orpheus had always come to Hermes' side. No matter how unresponsive his guardian. He would talk to him about all the good things, all the bad things. He'd ask him to come home with unwavering optimism. He had taken care to inform Hermes when he had to go. And every time. He tried. 

Hermes' eyes burned from looking. His ribs spasmed against his icy stomach as he turned. And he shuffled, one foot at a time, along the dusty dirt road. Home.  
Maybe for a sandwich or two.


End file.
